Brian Johnson’s PNTV episode summarizes Nathaniel Branden’s The Six Pillars of Self-Esteem. Johnson presents Branden’s working definition — "self-esteem is the reputation we acquire with ourselves" — and lists the six practices that form the core of Branden’s approach: living consciously; self-acceptance; self-responsibility; self-assertiveness; living purposefully; and personal integrity. The host emphasizes that these are practices (habits to be enacted consistently rather than abstract ideas), highlights sentence-completion exercises to increase conscious awareness, and stresses small, incremental improvements rather than perfection. The episode closes with a brief biographical note on Branden (including his association with Ayn Rand) and a promotional outro describing Johnson’s membership offerings.
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Hey, this is Brian. Welcome to Philosopher's Notes tv. Today we've got the Six Pillars of Self Esteem by Nathaniel Brandon. Awesome book. Brilliant guy, Nathaniel Brandon. He is the leading authority on self esteem. Just a brilliant guy and super, super, super smart. He's got an amazing writing style. I just read him and can tell that his brain is very, very big. Incredibly lucid, super quotable, like, almost like Emerson.
Brilliant.
He's a fascinating guy with a fascinating history as well. Really quickly he was close to Ayn Rand. He met Ayn Rand as a teenager and they swapped some letters and wound up becoming, having a very deep, intimate relationship. And he ran effectively her objectivist movement for the better part of 20 years. So really, really powerful stuff. Good guy. And this book is awesome. Highly recommend it. And I'm excited to share a few of my favorite big ideas right now. So first he says, Nathaniel says that if you look at all the problems that don't have a biological disorder, you know, or biological cause, you're going to find that everything from, you know, depression to underachievement in school to abuse and violence and suicide, all of these things are at least in part tied to low self esteem, tied to self esteem issues. So it's incredibly important for us to develop our self esteem. And he outlines six pillars of self esteem in this book. Going to go through a few of them right now. First of all, the definition of self esteem that I really like. He throws out a few of them, but the one I like the most is that self esteem is the reputation we acquire with ourselves. Self esteem is the reputation we acquire with ourselves. How cool is that? And it's tied to the actions we take consistently. So here are the six practices of self esteem. Number one, the practice of living consciously. And we're going to talk about most of these in more detail. Number two, the practice of self acceptance. Number three, the practice of self responsibility. And notice I'm emphasizing the practice of this isn't an idea, this is a practice. Number four, the practice of self assertiveness. Number five, the practice of living purposefully. And number six, the practice of personal integrity. So those are the six pillars, the six practices of self esteem. And I'm going to spend a little more time on the fact that we're talking about the practice of self esteem in each of those six different categories. He makes the point that what determines the level of self esteem is what the individual does. It's not about talking about these Ideas. I say this in nearly every one of these episodes and nearly every one of the hundred notes. It's about living them. It's about practicing what we believe. So it's incredibly important for us to put this into practice. He says that it's not about doing certain things in fits and starts.
Right?
We've got to be consistent. It's not how we respond to a crisis. Sure, something terrible happens, maybe we step up. But he says that's not enough to develop deep levels of self esteem. We've got to practice all these ideas such that it becomes a way of being right. Really big idea. I'm actually going to jump right now to the very final idea I have here. He says small improvements are big. Before we get overwhelmed with all this stuff and all these ideas of practicing this and practicing that, we've got to remember that it's not about being perfect, doing all this 100% right. He says this can hardly be overemphasized. These are ideals, these are guiding stars that we can aim for. But they're not distant shores. As Tal Ben Shahar says, we're never going to get to that point. I should also mention that Tal Ben Shahar, the Harvard professor who taught positive psychology, the most popular class at Harvard, who also wrote the Pursuit of Perfect and Happier, two books we profile here. Nathaniel Brandon is one of his mentors, so they have a lot in common. I respect and admire their work greatly. And they both talk about the fact that we're never going to be perfect. This isn't about doing these things perfectly. And that small improvements, tiny improvements, are huge. So we've got to pay attention and just do our best and take the next step moment to moment to moment, not get overwhelmed by the idea that we need to be doing any of this perfectly. Having said that, let's go into some detail on those six different practices.
Again.
We had self acceptance. I'm sorry? We had living consciously, self acceptance, self responsibility, self assertiveness, living purposefully, and personal integrity. One of the ways we can increase our practice of living consciously is through something called sentence completions. Really cool idea that points to the fact that we have more wisdom within ourselves than we often realize or that we're putting into practice. So one of the ways we can tap into that wealth of wisdom is through sentence completions. Things like living consciously to me means. And you complete that sentence. If you want to push, pause and play along, that'd be awesome. And I have them in the notes, of course. And you can write notes with the PDF but try this one on. If I bring 5% more awareness to my activities today.
Really cool.
If I bring 5% more awareness to my priorities today. And you can do this with a number of different ones. He's got dozens and dozens of them in there in the book, and we've got a half a dozen in the note. So the idea here is we have more wisdom than we thought than we think. And one way to tap into it is through sentence completions. Fascinating idea. Tall Ben Shahar also talks about these a lot in his book. It's a big part of his teaching as well. The next Big Idea is on self acceptance. He says that accepting ourselves is one of the most important things we can do. Both our challenges and our shadow elements and our light. To accept all of our potential and all the areas we need to work and just love ourselves, accept ourselves completely for where we are. He says that self acceptance can best be summed up as my refusal to be in an adversarial relationship with myself. How cool is that? My refusal to be in an adversarial relationship with myself. Isn't that amazing? So start keeping track, if you aren't already, of that little voice in your head that might be really critical, way more critical than is necessary. And check in and see if you can get out of being in such an adversarial relationship with yourself. You, if you happen to be in more of one than you want to. So moving on. Self assertiveness is another one of the practices. This is essentially all about living authentically, fully expressing ourselves and having the courage and the discipline and the practice to express our values, our innermost convictions and feelings consistently as a way of being, just as a rule of how we live our lives. And also just as a tangent. The word authentic and the word authority come from the same basic root word, and both tie to the fact that we are the authors. To be authentic literally, in a sense, means to be the author of our own lives. To be authentic, to express ourselves fully in any given moment. Really cool stuff. The next big idea is on living purposefully. It's incredibly important that we live on purpose, that we have goals that have personal meaning for us. Creating a family, optimizing our health, creating a business, launching whatever fitness initiative, whatever it is that we're passionate about. Live on purpose. He makes the important point here that having a goal orientation, being purpose driven is not a Western idea. The Buddha was very purpose driven. The Buddha was incredibly purpose driven. He was going to reach his enlightenment, figure out the root of suffering, such that he can inspire and empower the world. If that isn't a clear purpose and clear goals mapped with clear, impeccable action, I don't know what is. So this isn't a Western pop self development or just Western culture kind of thing. This is just a common feature of effective living. So get on that. What goals inspire you? Go out and rock it. Next big idea is what must I do? He says too rarely when we set our ideals do we ask what do I need to do? What must I do to achieve that? He says it's useful to ask a newlywed couple that's really happy, what do you plan to do to remain happy? As a newlywed, I'm very excited to have my plan and our contention to create an extraordinary relationship. We have practices that we embrace every day. We're going to talk about more and more and more in the months and years and decades ahead. But anyway, we've got to have a plan. What are we going to do? So much more in the note and in the book. That's a quick look at Nathaniel Brandon's classic the Six Pillars of Self Esteem. Hope you dug it. As always, have an awesome day and look forward to sharing more with you soon.
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